The herein disclosed and claimed invention relates to a method, apparatus and device useful in the manual medicine field, as for example the chiropractic field and more particularly useful in the treatment of mobility issues in vertebral articulation.
The prior art is replete with products and devices adapted to evaluate and treat issues of vertebral and extra vertebral joints. These might include manual as well as electrically controlled devices.
Generally, the prior art can be described as inefficient to use, difficult to control and unable to generate reproducible results over a reasonable period of time.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,716,890 applies force directly to the body of the patient by pneumatic means. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,116,235 and 4,461,286 apply force directly to the body of the patient by mechanical means by using energy stored in a spring, which energy when released by a trigger means, acts on a hammer. These types of devices produce variable results from use to use and from chiropractor to chiropractor.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,841,955, 4,948,127 and 6,537,236 are representative of prior art devices employing traditional solenoid winding arrangements to generate the electromagnetic force to propel the force applying member to treat and adjust the vertebrae joints. It has found that these type of devices have serious shortcomings, as for example, they typically are electrically inefficient and generate a substantial amount of unwanted heat. There is considerable heat generated from the electrical windings due to copper loss. Further, their hammers are solid piece members and as such, there are substantial eddy current losses. The overall effect of the electrical inefficiency of the prior art is above mentioned unwanted heat which is transmitted throughout the entire device reducing the device's electrical and mechanical efficiency. Thus, the device becomes hot and difficult for the operator to hold and apply properly and are unsuitable for high frequency operation. This heat problem is acknowledged in U.S. Pat. No. 6,602,211 by the provision of a thermal overload switch to combat overheating.